Neo-Victorianism’s inhospitable hospitality: a case study of Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Long Nineteenth Century has proven exceedingly hospitable to creative artists’ historical re-imaginings. Yet the tendency of neo-Victorian works to focus on the nineteenth century’s darker traumatic aspects troubles conceptualisations of ideal hospitality’s crucial link with ethics. This article explores what I term neo-Victorianism’s curious ‘inhospitable hospitality,’ using Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White (2002) as a case study to expose troubling gender biases and hierarchies of ‘otherness’ at the heart of hospitality. Hospitality, I contend, is predicated on inhospitality, accounting for neo-Victorian violations of ‘otherness’ and inviting us to question our own liberal subjectivity.